Andrew Urquhart wrote:
<snip>
Sounds like one of those forms that I fill in every day and go into
auto-pilot when I do so. Except in this case when I look back at the
screen after completing the form it might look like:
Name: Andrew Urquhart
Phone: 01234 [blank] 567
Address: 789
City: 221b Baker Street
Post Code: London
... because I expected the form to function like other forms I'm used
to filling in and I used the tab key without realising that there was
some script in there that was trying to be helpful, but actually got
in the way and confused things. When I go back to edit the phone
number I'd bet that the script will keep 'helpfully' pushing the
cursor into the next input box as I try to delete '567'. So in
summary I'd argue that the requirements are unhelpful to the user,
well, if that user is me at least :-)
It is one of those requirements that are thought up by someone who
exclusively uses a mouse to navigate between form fields and thinks this
would be helpful to *them*, and by extension to everyone else as nobody
would ever use a computer in any different way form them.
The result is an interface that assists the users of mice (and
presumably other pointing devices) and actively hinders the users of
keyboards; those of us who can touch-type, serious laptop users (who
know all the keyboard shortcuts because those laptop pointing devices
really are not much use for anything) and anyone disabled in such a way
as to render mouse/pointing device use non-viable while leaving the
keyboard useable.
On the other hand the facility might be of value to the users of
pointing devices. So I wonder whether it could be implemented in a way
that provided the action for them but did not interfere with keyboard
users. A possible starting point would be to trigger this "helpful"
feature only if a pointing device was initially used to focus the first
telephone field. Monitoring a mousedown or click event on that field, so
that users who tabbed into the field with the keyboard would not trigger
the script. Maybe combined with monitoring keydown events on all form
fields, or at the document level, and aborting all pointing device
assisting scripts whenever a tab key press was detected. (best of both
worlds?)
Richard.
